my ignorance is as valid as your facts

Isn't that forbidden by the bible and shit?

was eating from the Tree of Knowledge. It slays me how many fundie christians I work with that use Apple products- can they not see what is in front of their face (Apple logo)?

They're too busy with sugary beverages...

I can lure MILFs with Monster energy drinks? Sign me up seriously, these people need a check up from the neck up.

Satan has MILFs waiting for you----IN HELLLLL


check up from the neck up------ROFL!

The sinners are much more fun

...(well, where I've read that passage anyway -- I've only read a couple of bibles all the way through) -- the full phrase is "the tree of knowledge of good and evil".

That seems to have a very different meaning. It seems to be an issue of mankind having a moral sense, not of mankind having knowledge per se. I'm sure theologians have other interpretations. But the common usage "tree of knowledge" just bugs me because it is truncated and seems to imply something different than the actual phrase in the bible.

Regardless, to have knowledge of good takes some knowledge of evil.

...but I've only read it one way.

Also, yes on the knowing good vs. knowing evil; but that was pretty much my point: "knowledge of good and evil" is NOT the same as "knowledge"; i.e., the former presupposes a moral sense while the latter is often interpreted to be against knowledge in general and scientific knowledge in particular.

And with that I will cease this discussion, but only because I don't want to hijack the thread...

In fact, the Garden of Eden narrative doesn't specifically mention apples, it just says "fruit". The use of apples is just an artistic convention dating back to, I think, the renaissance.

by choice - he thinks America should be a theocracy - go figure

I thought the polio vaccine was developed by " a person in a garage somewhere."

/sarcasm

It's Murka.

Tug at the heartstrings, feel-good blurb about how wonderful America was/is, and then the implication that Planned Parenthood murders babies in order to harvest their organs. And Ted Cruz will STOP THEM. People who get any of their opinions whatsoever from political ads, IMO, don't have critical thinking skills or have no reason to question or investigate.

Does exactly what it was meant to do.

... unfortunately.

Many years ago I worked for a doctor who performed early abortions and sometimes they had to examine the aspirate with magnification to be sure the abortion was successful. Even in late term abortions, organs are not "harvested" for anything other than research. If Cruz prefers, he can propose a law that dubs them medical waste and they can be tossed away with no benefit to mankind at all. These people have got to stop playing doctor.

Human organs are fully developed by eleven plus weeks in a fetus, well within the legal period of abortion. In the Denver video, the lab tech was looking for organs from the aborted fetus in that petri dish. Now there is a medical researcher who has had success experimenting with transplanting fetal organs into rats and growing them. Works for about four month and the organs do manage to grow and they are or are planning to try this with pigs. The ultimate goal is for developing replacement organs for human patients that need them. Currently fetal organs are too small for direct transplantation and it is currently illegal. But you can see where this could ultimately take us and why some people fear abortions will be performed primarily to harvest organs. It IS ILLEGAL to perform any abortion for the express purpose of harvesting organs. But pro-life groups are pushing this information as part of their campaign.

And here is a PRO-LIFE article about a medical research program at the University of Wisconsin and their use of fetal tissue. The article goes out of its way to name specific doctors/administrators. The pro-lifers are going to target researchers now. BUT remember, their contention is that PP is SELLING fetal tissue which is illegal and the law says that not ONLY is the seller breaking the law, but the RECIPIENTS as well. The law includes the research facilities using the tissue for research. If you investigate PP and Stem Express , you also have to investigate UW. In the past, this has been an isolated attack of PP. Now it is spreading outside and it could get nasty for a lot of people. http://www.lifenews.com/2015/08/11/university-of-wisconsin-caught-buying-aborted-baby-body-parts-for-research/

fuck him and his ilk

May I borrow that? It's spot on and very useful.

god forbid you add color.

Cruz knows what he is doing. He is a smart and scary person. His brain is wired very darkly and weirdly.

how this procedure is different from post mortem organ donation? I may be overlooking some nuance here, but it seems to be the same.

Many in the GOP base absolutely believe this, although I don't think Cruz does, he is just a very clever opportunist with a goal.

Iowa and N.H. GOP primaries, how much more charitably can anyone describe these voters everyone is pandering to be other than complete morons - and idiots?

Cruz is evil to pretend he believes any of this rot, or he believes all he says, either way, still evil and /or insane.

How did this guy get elected to the Senate???

They only use the issue to point at their political opponents and accuse them of murdering babies.

It is a rally for.... wait for it..... "religious liberty" .... see what he did there..... Just lumped up the SCOTUS Marriage equality and ROE all in one nice little baggie of ... they are coming to take away your rights to worship god...Rise up against this tide of sins reminiscent of Sodom and Gomorrah and act tell your friends and neighbors pray to Jesus and vote for me.....

Those being, "why do you ONLY care about life while it is still inside the womb?" "Why do you ABANDON and make HARDSHIPS for the poor family that just had a child?" "Don't you have the same obligation to the baby just born as you give to the fetus?"

IF NOT, then WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? Monsters roam this nation and pretend to be moral men with goals to benefit society. Pretend.

THIS is why I will NEVER again take mainstream media seriously anymore, they don't actually have anything to do with the mainstream - just a narrow group of millionaire/billionaires asked/asking a very narrow group of safe questions.

Says the modest senator conning the rubes.

As a kid in the 50's I can tell you that polio was feared even more than "duck and cover" nuclear annihilation.

Parents were terrified about polio and restricted their kids activities. There were frequent polio scares, block quarantines, friends who died of it, and friends who were crippled by it. We all knew and feared iron lungs. There were nation-wide March of Dimes (A BIG deal in the 40's and 50's) campaigns in the schools, mothers deciding each child would rest indoors at their own homes after lunch every day, scares about public pools spreading the disease, and, after all that, your best friend next door got it. Heck, even a president of the United States got polio.

Have you seen that current ad that shows people’s reactions to the announcement, “Cancer Cured!”. See the look on their faces? The joy? That happened - in 1955 - over the Salk vaccine, and there was no anti-vaccine organization back then. You got that shot.

This is what Reich-wing conservatives mean when they scream they want to “take America back.”

The woman that lived across the street from us was in an iron lung; her family would keep the drapes open in the window so she would have natural light, but also, be able to turn her head and see her kids at play (on the front lawn of our house). I well remember that. I also remember the long, long lines of families waiting to receive their sugar cube containing the vaccine.

'Pukes long for that magical time when there was a commie under every bed, kids in their classrooms with their heads tucked between their legs and Joe McCarthy's witch hunt was the rage.

I don't see how anyone who grew up in the latter forties to mid sixties could think otherwise. We loved science then, but outlawed abortions. No one sweated the details of progressive scientific breakthroughs. We also gave more lip service to God. But, current so-called "Christians" would have been relegated to the loonie side of the population. Yeah, these minorities are vocal and very influential these days. Any Presidential candidate who caters to this is not worthy of being "leader of the Free World" Those nations are forging increasingly ahead of us in the real, existing world today.

I would imagine that it has been used productively for decades. When abortion wasn't legal, no questions were ever asked. When it began to be legal, the anti abortion movement ("pro life" as they prefer) sprang into being. This has led to the craziness now claiming that the moment , when sperm meets egg, a viable human being is" born". I wish we could bar all men who aren't direct sperm providers (if it would be THEIR child) from having any say whatsoever. That would be the beginning of sanity. Actually having a presidential candidate blowing off the mother ( a sentient, productive human being) in favor of a zygote, illustrates just how insane this has become. Who in the world would ever vote for such a person?

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

To put it another way, creating a strategic narrative is always preferred over telling the truth.

Truth is concrete and undeniable whereas narratives can be changed, even reversed instantaneously.

This allows Cruz to claim, in a completely candid and unselfconscious way, America's greatness at finding a vaccination for polio, while at the same time advocating the criminalization of the process that created the vaccine.

He's not stupid, ill informed or a liar. He's just controlling the narrative.